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To enjoy life and increase Well-Being in terms of emotional persistence

April 17, 2024

Do you want to increase your Well-Being? What does it mean to increase Well-Being? Although multiple factors contribute to Well-Being, this column is be based on the concept of subjective Well-Being (Diener, 1984; 2000), which suggests that experiencing more positive emotions and fewer negative emotions is associated with higher Well-Being.

Reflection on the persistence of Well-Being from the perspective of emotional persistence

When considering the emotional aspect of Well-Being, both frequency and persistence are considered in order to increase it. Frequency, or in other words, the frequent experience of positive emotions and the infrequent experience of negative emotions, represents high Well-Being.

In contrast, persistence, or in other words, experiencing positive emotions for a longer period of time and negative emotions for a shorter period of time, represents high Well-Being. Previous studies have mainly examined frequency. On the other hand, persistence has tended to be overlooked. Therefore, we would like to examine the persistence of Well-Being from the perspective of emotional persistence.

Which is easier to manipulate: mood or emotion?

Emotions are broadly classified into mood and emotion. Moods have been considered to persist for a long time, while emotions have been considered to persist for a less long time (Beedie et al., 2005).

Mood is an affect that occurs without a specific cause, whereas emotion is an affect caused by a specific cause. From the perspective of enhancing Well-Being, it may be useful to examine emotions, which are easier to manipulate. How long do emotions last?

In the laboratory, they are known to last only a few minutes (Ekman & Friesen, 1982; Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998). However, when using experience sampling survey or recall methods that measure experiences in daily life, emotional experiences can persist for several hours (Kaneko & Takawaki, 2019; Verduyn et al., 2009; Verduyn et al., 2011). This is thought to be due to the fact that only relatively weak emotions are evoked in the laboratory, whereas strong emotions are experienced in daily life (Verduyn et al., 2015). Therefore, the persistence of emotions has a greater impact on daily life than is observed in the laboratory.

About Emotional Persistence

There are two main factors involved in the persistence of emotions. The first is the salience of the event that arouses the emotion; when emotions are aroused by events that are important to the self, they are more likely to persist (Verduyn et al., 2009; Verduyn et al., 2011).

One reason is that emotions aroused by important events are stronger immediately after being aroused than those aroused by unimportant events. Kaneko and Horike (2016) examined this in a laboratory experiment.After introducing positive affect using a sham ability test and providing positive feedback, an experimenter measured the intensity of positive affect before and after a 5-min filler task. Participants who received positive feedback on their important competencies experienced stronger positive affect than those who received positive feedback on their unimportant competencies at both times. However, there were no differences in the rate of decline in emotional intensity between the two measures in either condition. In other words, the persistence of emotion after the significant event was not due to a particularly slow rate of decline in emotional intensity, but rather to a high initial emotional intensity.

The second factor is the persistence of attention to the event that produced the emotion. For example, emotion is likely to persist when people engage in information seeking to learn more about the event that produced the emotion, regardless of whether the event is positive or negative (Kaneko et al., 2018; see also Kaneko and Ozaki, 2020). Emotions are also more likely to persist during the rumination phase of such an event (e.g., Verduyn, & Lavrijsen, 2015).

Regarding attention, it can be divided into two phases: The phase of physical attention, when the emotion-evoking event is present in the scene, and the phase of psychological attention, when the above-mentioned event is not physically present but is thought about in the mind. Kaneko and Takawaki (2019) investigated the relationship between emotional persistence and physical and psychological attention in daily life, using the experience sampling method.

They found that in 44% of cases, emotional persistence ended when physical attention was engaged, and in 32% of cases, emotional persistence ended when physical attention ended. Conversely, in 5% of the cases, emotional persistence ended while only psychological attention was engaged, and in 19% of the cases, emotional persistence continued after psychological attention ended. In laboratory experiments, stimuli used for emotional arousal are presented for relatively short periods of time, and we are often interested in the duration of the emotion after the stimuli are presented.

On the other hand, in daily life we are interested in the whole duration of the emotion, so it is important to study the reappraisal process of emotionally arousing stimuli while physical attention is maintained. Typical types of such stimuli include social relationships such as conversations and community activities.

Conclusion

From the above, we should increase the salience of positive events and increase the duration of positive emotions by paying attention to them in order to increase Well-Being from the perspective of emotional persistence. Conversely, negative events should be made less important and negative emotional durations should be shortened by diverting attention from them. By manipulating the duration of emotions in this way, we expect to be able to increase Well-Being in our daily lives. Enjoy your life.

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